Exemption No. 9988 

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA 

DEPARTMENT OF TRANSPORTATION 

FEDERAL AVIATION ADMINISTRATION 

WASHINGTON, DC 20591 

 

In the matter of the petition of 

 

GEOVANTAGE, INC. Regulatory Docket No. FAA-2008-1266

 

for an exemption from § 91.327(a) 

of Title 14, Code of 

Federal Regulations 

 

DENIAL OF EXEMPTION 

 By letter dated November 18, 2008, Mr. James R. Summerville, Aviation Operations 

Director, GeoVantage, Inc. (GeoVantage), 3 Centennial Drive, Suite 350, Peabody, 

Massachusetts 01960, petitioned the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) on behalf of 

GeoVantage for an exemption from § 91.327(a) of Title 14, Code of Federal Regulations 

(14 CFR). The proposed exemption, if granted, would permit GeoVantage to operate an 

aircraft having a special airworthiness certificate in the light-sport category while conducting 

aerial surveying for commercial purposes. 

The petitioner requests relief from the following regulation:

Section 91.327(a) prescribes that no person may operate an aircraft that has a special 

airworthiness certificate in the light-sport category for compensation or hire except to 

tow a glider or an unpowered ultralight vehicle in accordance with § 91.309 of this 

chapter; or to conduct flight training. 

The petitioner supports its request with the following information:

The petitioner states that aerial surveying and the general collection of geo-registered 

imagery has extensive uses in land use management. Examples provided by the 

petitioner include: agriculture, forestry, and environmental monitoring where an expert 

observer can make decisions regarding the appropriate land activities without a 

physical presence. The petitioner believes that GeoVantage has a low cost approach of 

providing critical information for land use management that would benefit the public 

AFS-09-071-E 
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and the environment immensely by decreasing environmental hazards such as those 

resulting from nitrogen and pesticides. 

The petitioner states that while the costs of aerial surveying are increasing, the ability 

to install newer digital imaging technology systems of reduced size and weight in 

smaller single-engine aircraft such as GeoVantage’s Remos GX, a special light-sport 

aircraft (S-LSA), could serve to dramatically reduce these costs. The petitioner states 

that an exemption to permit the use of its S-LSA for aerial surveys would benefit the 

public by decreasing the costs of obtaining survey-precise imagery data for various 

public and commercial uses and permit that information to be provided to users in a 

more timely manner. Additionally, the petitioner believes that its public interest 

justification is similar to that set forth in Exemption No. 6701 and believes that the 

agency’s grant of that exemption has also set a favorable precedent for the grant of its 

request. 

The petitioner specifically proposes to exercise the privileges of the exemption outside 

the United States and believes that it is important to consider land use management by 

aerial surveying in developing countries. The petitioner intends to operate an aerial 

surveying business internationally for agriculture and forestry monitoring and disaster 

management. The petitioner states that the Remos GX S-LSA could be readily shipped 

two-to-a-container to any location in the world and operated in lieu of more expensive 

aircraft. Furthermore, the petitioner states that GeoVantage camera equipment has 

been operated by in-country partners in South Africa, Australia, Indonesia, Argentina, 

Canada, and Mexico. The petitioner has plans to operate under Advisory 

Circular 00-60 within Canada and Mexico, exercising the privileges set forth under the 

North American Free Trade Agreement. As such, the petitioner finds that the use of its 

S-LSA is critical to GeoVantage’s business. The petitioner also believes that permitting 

the use of its S-LSA to conduct these operations will foster the export of aerial survey 

services, therefore providing a significant benefit to the overall U.S. economy. 

The petitioner states that granting the exemption would not adversely affect safety 

because the relief permitted by the exemption would only be exercised in accordance 

with the following provisions: 

1. All aerial survey operations would occur under visual flight rules (VFR) 

conditions; 

2. All aircraft ferrying from a staging airport would occur under VFR conditions; 

3. Aircraft would be trailored from one location to another thereby avoiding 

lengthy ferry flights; 

4. All pilots operating the equipment would have commercial licenses and over 

500 hours of pilot-in-command time; 

5. Carriage of passengers would be prohibited; 
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6. Operations would generally be conducted over sparsely populated areas; and 

7. Pilots would be trained in accordance with a specified training syllabus. 

The petitioner believes that currently permitted operations are more dangerous than the 

operations it proposes to conduct and that the execution of its assigned mission, under 

the conditions specified, would provide a level of safety in excess of that set forth in 

§ 91.327(a). 

 A summary of the petition was published in the Federal Register on January 16, 2009 

(74 FR 3128). Two comments were received in favor of the petitioner’s request. 

The FAA's analysis is as follows: 

The FAA has reviewed the petitioner’s supporting information and finds the relief 

requested by the by the petitioner would not provide an equivalent level of safety and 

would not be in the public interest. 

The FAA created the light-sport category of aircraft with the implementation of the 

Final Rule, “Certification of Aircraft and Airmen for the Operation of Light–Sport 

Aircraft (69 FR 44772; July 27, 2004). These aircraft are not manufactured under 

airworthiness standards specifically set forth in 14 CFR but rather in accordance with 

consensus standards accepted by the FAA. Compliance with these consensus 

standards results in an aircraft that the agency considers safe for those operations 

currently permitted to be conducted under the regulations. 

As S-LSA do not meet airworthiness standards applicable to other aircraft, such as 

those issued a standard airworthiness certificate, the FAA requires these aircraft to 

comply with specific limitations that it considers appropriate for the operation of the 

aircraft. These operating limitations are based upon factors such as the design 

standards used to certificate the aircraft and the minimum qualifications of those 

persons authorized to operate the aircraft. Accordingly, the FAA in 14 CFR 

§ 91.327(a)(1) and (2) prohibits the use of these aircraft for compensation or hire 

except for the limited purposes of towing a glider or unpowered ultralight vehicle or to 

conduct flight training. 

Although the petitioner believes that aerial survey operations should be permitted to 

be conducted in these aircraft and cites Exemption No. 6701, as precedential, the FAA 

does not believe that exemption sets a precedent for granting the petitioner’s request. 

Although that exemption granted relief from 14 CFR § 91.313(c) to permit the 

petitioner to carry passengers in Bell 47G helicopters certificated in the restricted 

category while performing site survey flights, the FAA considers the differences in the 

airworthiness standards applied to those aircraft and to aircraft certificated as S-LSA 

to be sufficiently different to distinguish the two petitions and not constitute a 

precedent for GeoVantage’s request. Additionally, S-LSA are not subject to the more 

restrictive operating limitations imposed on restricted category aircraft, such as those 
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generally preventing operation over densely populated areas, in a congested airway, or 

near airports where transport operations are conducted. 

Although the petitioner has proposed specific conditions under which its aerial survey 

operations would be conducted, it has not provided substantive evidence that these 

conditions will, in fact, provide a level of safety equivalent to that provided by the 

regulation from which the petitioner seeks relief. The petitioner has not demonstrated 

that using an aircraft that meets the design standards applicable to an aircraft 

certificated in the light-sport category provides a level of safety equivalent to that of 

an aircraft certificated under design standards applicable to aircraft that are currently 

permitted to be used for these kinds of operations. 

The petitioner also states that the operations currently permitted to be conducted under 

§ 91.327 are no more dangerous than those operations it proposes to conduct; 

however, the petitioner has not provided evidence to support this contention. The 

FAA is continuing to assess the status of the light-sport aircraft industry; however, at 

this time sufficient data are not available to conclusively make a determination that the 

proposed operations provide a level of safety equivalent to those permitted by the 

current regulation. 

Although the petitioner also states that a grant of exemption would be in the public 

interest by extending the use of aerial survey imagery applications, the FAA notes that 

the applications and benefits cited by the petitioner may be obtained from aircraft that 

are currently available and permitted to be used to conduct aerial survey operations. 

The petitioner also requests to conduct operation outside the United States under the 

provisions of the exemption. The FAA, however, cannot provide this relief. The 

operation of an aircraft having a special airworthiness certificate, in the light-sport 

category, outside the United States may only be conducted with the approval of the 

civil aviation authority of the country in which the proposed operation would be 

conducted. 

The FAA’s Decision: 

 In consideration of the foregoing, I find that a grant of exemption would not be in the 

public interest. Therefore, pursuant to the authority contained in 49 U.S.C. §§ 40113 
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and 44701, delegated to me by the Administrator, the petition of GeoVantage, Inc., for an 

exemption from 14 CFR § 91.327(a) is hereby denied. 

Issued in Washington, D.C., on December 24, 2009. 

/s/ 

John M. Allen 

Director, Flight Standards Service